Perry Edward Treadwell

Treadwell—Perry Edward Treadwell, 86, on June 25, 2018, in Decatur, Ga. Perry was born on June 18, 1932, in Chicago, Ill., the only child of Wilma Perry and Paul Treadwell. He grew up in Wausau, Wis., and attended a Methodist church until he went to Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minn., where he was an Episcopal acolyte. He received a doctorate in microbiology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA Brain Research Institute and at the University of Minnesota Cell Research Program.

He and his wife, Harriet, and their four children attended La Jolla (Calif.) Meeting, and he joined Atlanta (Ga.) Meeting in 1970 when he moved to Atlanta to teach at Emory University. He served as clerk of the meeting in 1990–91 during the building of and transition to a new meetinghouse, was active in Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting, and represented Atlanta Meeting to Friends General Conference (FGC), for which he served on the Nominating and Long Range Planning Committees and volunteered at the annual Gathering. He was a war tax witness for 40 years and convened simple living workshops. With other meeting members, he lived in an intentional community (guided by the principles of Movement for a New Society), was a part-owner of the Little Five Points Community Pub, and helped to found the Atlanta Men’s Experience.

He wrote eight books, advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and was a junior fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. After his academic career, he achieved what he termed a full bucket list of goals: volunteering with the Georgia Conservancy, Grady Hospice, and AID Atlanta; writing for newspapers and magazines; and serving as docent at the CDC museum. He visited all 50 states and many countries and participated in two barefoot sails to the Bahamas. In 2008, he described to Atlanta Meeting a spiritual journey that began when as a child he became conscious of being a part of the universe. He identified as mystical experiences seeing cell division through a microscope for the first time and climbing Pendle Hill, where he sensed George Fox’s vision. He felt a deep reverence for the environment and the unity of all life, saying that “there is a divinity that shapes us.”

Perry is survived by his wife, Judith Greenberg; his former wife, Harriet Unfug; four children, Gilbert Treadwell, Gail Holland (Clay), Sally Treadwell, and Susan Treadwell (Linda); three grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.